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Eating Habits of Dairy Cows under Drylot Conditions¹

Department of Animal Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman

ABSTRACT

The present trend in many dairying areas adjacent to populated centers is toward more drylot operations. Drylot dairying is not new, but surprisingly little information has been published on the eating habits of dairy cows under these conditions.

Fuller (1) compared the eating habits of cows in box stalls with those in stanchions. Cows in box stalls, which were milked 3x daily and which had access to hay free-choice, spent an average of 5 hr, 57 min eating, whereas cows in stanchions spent only 3 hr, 5 min eating. Schalk and Amadon (3) reported an eating time of 6.43 hr per 24 hr for nine lactating cows under stanchioned winter feeding conditions.

Tribe (4) observed that sheep on pasture grazed 9 hr, 25 min daily.

Recently, Putnam and Davis (2) reported that individually penned steers ate an average of 12 times per day (24 hr) and required 4 hr to eat a grain ration and 5 hr to eat a high-roughage ration.

¹ Scientific Paper No. 2412, Washington Agricultural Experiment Station, Pullman. Project 1439.

² Present address: Department of Dairy Science, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas.